Growing Pains

Workout: 5 miles, 10:19 average

I dunno, guys, the ole achy shins might be acting up again. But first, some pretty pictures to put us (and by us I mean me) in a good mood:

I work right next to this place now!

 Did I or did I not promise that there are mountains back there?

So, I mentioned a couple of days ago that there was some pain during my 8-miler. It wasn't bad and it went away after a few miles, but it still concerned me. I could feel it some yesterday on my hike, but I made sure to ICE (RICE minus the Rest thing) before bed and was feeling pretty psyched about my run today. Side note: is it normal to stay up at night because you're excited about your run the next day? Amazing how badly I want to run at 2:00 a.m. as opposed to, say, when I wake up the next morning to actually do the thing.

Anyway, I did five miles at the dog park (and got to run for a few minutes on the new trails I found on Saturday!) and my shins were pretty achy the whole time. It was annoying because my muscles felt great. I decided to power through in the spirit of "no pain no gain," albeit at a very slow pace. Then I finished. Jeano: story teller extraordinaire.

My mind seems to be pulling me in two totally different directions in response to these shin shenanigans. On the one hand, I'm hyperaware of pain because a) stress fracture last year, and b) apart from the stress fracture (an admittedly huge omission, but reasonable since I think it was the result of running in new shoes on hilly terrain I wasn't prepared for and not running in dumb shoes), I've hardly experienced any running-related pain since switching to minimalism over a year and a half ago (I know, I KNOW, spare me your eye roll at the shoe thing and at the fact that this sentence may be the longest run-on in the history of the world). Feeling pain while running is a relatively new and unnerving feeling, and my biggest fear is sidelining myself.

On the other hand, from what I understand it is necessary to push through some pain in order to get better. Certain stressors allow the body to get stronger and to adapt to a greater workload. And how do the pros recommend differentiating between "good" and "bad" pain? "Listen to your body." Ugh. That's not concrete enough for this blockhead. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. Obviously, if I can't walk I shouldn't be running. But how am I supposed to interpret less severe pain? To me, "good" pain is muscle pain and "bad" pain is all other pain, but I don't think that's actually the case.

So what's my point? My point is "STOP TELLING ME TO LISTEN TO MY BODY." No, not really. Shin pain isn't a big deal and odds are it won't turn into anything, so for the moment I plan to continue with my good friend Hal's program as planned. However, Dr. Google assures me that it will, in fact, turn into a stress fracture if I keep running, so I guess the best I can do is keep an eye on it. Let's just hope they're growing pains (like that dumb t.v. show!).